The British magazine Flight International has praised South Korea's trainer jet T-50 and predicted rosy prospects for its export overseas.

Korea Aerospace Industries on Friday said test pilot Collins Peter James called the T-50 the only trainer that can resolve the inefficiency from the large performance gap with state-of-the-art fighters and higher operating expenses … problems common to trainer jets.

He also said trainer is a perfect aircraft not needing extra attention on the plane and engine and a genuine next-generation trainer equipped with cutting-edge avionics technology.

Compared to the T-50, James said that Britain's Hawk-1-28 lags in many areas despite recent upgrades and that Italy's M-3-46 will find the global market hard to penetrate since it is in the developmental stage.

Designed to train next-generation fighters such as the F-15-K, F-35 and F-22, the T-50 is South Korea's first advanced trainer jet developed domestically.